The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi approved the “Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana (PM-MKSSY)”, a Central Sector Sub-scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada for formalization of the fisheries sector and supporting fisheries micro and small enterprises with an investment of over Rs. 6,000 crores over a period of next four (4) years from FY 2023-24 to FY 2026-27 in all States/Union Territories.

Expenditure involved

The Sub-scheme will be implemented as a Central Sector Sub-scheme under the Central Sector Component of the PMMSY at an estimated outlay of  Rs.6,000 crore consisting of 50% i.e. Rs.3,000 crore public finance including the World Bank and the AFD external financing, and rest 50% i.e.Rs.3,000 crore being the anticipated investment from the beneficiaries/private sector leverage. It will be implemented for 4 (four) years from FY 2023-24 to FY 2026-27 across all the States and UTs.

Intended Beneficiaries:

• Fishers, Fish (Aquaculture) Farmers, Fish workers, Fish Vendors or such other person directly engaged in fisheries value chain.
• Micro and Small enterprises in the form of Proprietary Firms, Partnership Firms and Companies registered in India, Societies, Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs), Cooperatives, Federations, Village Level Organizations like Self Help Groups (SHGs), Fish Farmers Producer Organizations (FFPOs) and Startups engaged in fisheries and aquaculture value chains.
• FFPOs also include Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs).
• Any other beneficiaries that may be included by the Department of Fisheries, Gol as targeted beneficiaries.

Major Impact, including employment generation potential

• To create a National Fisheries Digital Platform to provide 40 lakh small and micro-enterprises work based identities.

• Gradual formalization of fisheries sector and enhanced access to institutional credit. The initiative will support 6.4 lakh micro-enterprises and 5,500 fisheries cooperatives, providing access to institutional credit.
• Gradual shift from conventional subsidies to performance based incentives in fisheries
• The program focuses on improving value chain efficiency and ensuring safe, quality fish by supporting 55,000 targeted micro and small enterprises,

• Promotion of Environment and Sustainability Initiatives
• Facilitating Ease of Doing Business and Transparency
• Address issues of aquaculture crop losses due to disease through insurance coverage for aquaculture to strengthen production, productivity

• Enhance export competitiveness through value addition, value realization and value creation
• Increase in incomes due to enhanced profit margins due to value chain efficiencies
• Improved quality of fish and fishery products in domestic market
• Strengthening and deepening of domestic markets
• Facilitating growth of businesses, creation of jobs and creation of business opportunities.
• Women Empowerment through creation of jobs and safe working place
• It is projected to create 1.7 lakh new jobs, with a special emphasis on employing 75,000 women and also aims to generate 5.4 lakh continued employment opportunities in the micro and small enterprises value chain.

Aims and objectives of PM-MKSSY:

1. Gradual Formalization of the unorganized fisheries sector through self registration of fishers, fish farmers and supportive workers under a National Fisheries Sector Digital Platform including creation of work based digital identifies of fish workers for improved service delivery.
2. Facilitating access to institutional financing fisheries sector micro and small enterprises.
3. Providing one-time incentive to beneficiaries for purchasing aquaculture insurance.
4. lncentivizing fisheries and aquaculture microenterprises through performance grants for improving fisheries sector value-chain efficiencies including creation and maintenance of jobs.
5. Incentivising micro and small enterprises through performance grants for adoption and expansion of fish and fishery product safety and quality assurance systems including creation and maintenance of jobs.

Implementation strategy:

The Sub-scheme has the following major components:

1. Component 1-A: Formalization of fisheries sector and facilitating access of fisheries microenterprises to Government of India programs for working capital financing:

Fisheries, being an unorganised sector needs to be gradually formalized by creation of registry of the fish producers and other supporting actors such as fish workers, vendors and processors including micro and small enterprises working in the sector at the national level. For this purpose, a National Fisheries Digital Platform (NFDP) will be created and all the stakeholders will be mobilized to register on it. They will be encouraged to do so through providing financial incentives. The NFDP will serve multiple functions including disbursement of financial incentives. It is also proposed to undertake activities such as training and extension support, improving financial literacy, facilitating project preparation and documentation through financial support, reimbursing the processing fee and such other charges, if any and strengthening of existing fisheries cooperative societies.

2. Component 1-B: Facilitating adoption of aquaculture insurance:

It is proposed to facilitate creation of appropriate insurance product and to cover at least 1 lakh hectare of aquaculture farms during project period to provide the scale of operation. Further, it is proposed to provide onetime incentive to the willing farmers against purchase of insurance with farm size of 4 hectares of water spread area and less. The ‘onetime incentive’ will be at the rate of 40% of the cost of premium subject to a limit of Rs.25000 per hectare of water spread area of the aquaculture farm. The maximum incentive payable to single farmer will be Rs.1,00,000 and maximum farm size eligible for incentive is 4 hectares of water spread area. For more intensive form of aquaculture other than farms such as cage culture, Re-circulatory Aquaculture System (RAS), bio-floc, raceways, etc. the incentive payable is 40% of premium. Maximum incentive payable is 1 lakh and the maximum unit size eligible will be of 1800 m³. The aforesaid benefit of ‘onetime incentive’ will be provided for aquaculture insurance purchased for one crop only i.e. one crop cycle. SC, ST and Women beneficiaries would be provided an additional incentive @ 10% of the incentive payable for General Categories. This is expected to create a robust market for aquaculture insurance products and enable the insurance companies to come up with attractive insurance products in future.

3. Component 2: Supporting microenterprises to improve fisheries sector value chain efficiencies:

This component seeks to improve value chain efficiencies in fishery sector through a system of performance grants with associated analytics and awareness campaigns. It is proposed to incentivise microenterprises to reengage in production, creation and maintenance of jobs with priority for women and to enhance value chain efficiencies through provisions of performance grants within selected value chains under a set of measurable parameters.

The scale of performance grant and the criteria for providing performance grants are indicated below:

1. The performance Grant for a Microenterprise shall not exceed 25% of the total investment or Rs.35 lakhs, whichever is lower, for General Category and 35% of total investment or Rs.45 lakhs, whichever is lower, for SC, ST and Women owned microenterprises.
2. Performance Grant for Village Level Organizations and Federations of SHGs, FFPOs and Cooperatives shall not exceed 35% of total investment or Rs.200 lakhs, whichever is lower.
3. The total investment for the purpose above (i, ii & iii) shall consist of expenditure incurred on capital investments made on new plant and machinery, equipment including technical civil/electrical works and associated infrastructure, transport and distribution infrastructure, energy efficient devices including Renewal Energy devices, technology interventions, such other interventions leading to improvement in value chain efficiency; and salary bills for additional jobs created in the year of application made under the scheme.

d) Component 3: Adoption and expansion of fish and fishery product safety and quality assurance systems:

It is proposed to incentivize fisheries micro and small enterprises to adopt safety and quality assurance systems in marketing of fish and fishery products through provision of performance grants against a set of measurable parameters. This is expected to expand the market for fish and to create and maintain jobs especially for women. This intervention is expected to expand domestic market for fish through increased supply of safe fish and fishery products which will attract new consumers. The scale of performance grants the criteria for providing performance grants are indicated below:

1. Performance Grant for a Microenterprise shall not exceed 25% of the total investment or, Rs.35 lakhs, whichever is lower, for General Category and 35% of total investment or, Rs.45 lakhs, whichever is lower, for SC, ST and Women owned microenterprises.
2. The maximum size of Performance Grant for a Small enterprise shall not exceed 25% of total investment or Rs.75 lakhs, whichever is lower, for General Category and 35% of total investment or Rs.100 lakhs, whichever is lower, for SC, ST and Women owned small enterprises.
3. The maximum size of Performance Grant for Village Level Organizations and Federations of SHGs, FFPOs and Cooperatives shall not exceed 35% of total investment or Rs.200 lakhs, whichever is lower.
4. Total investment for the above purpose shall consist of the expenditure incurred on a) capital investments made on new plant and machinery, b) equipment including technical civil/electrical works and associated infrastructure, c) transport and distribution infrastructure, d) collection and treatment facility for wastes, e) disease management, best management practices, standards, certification and traceability, technology interventions, and such other investments leading to production and supply of safe fish and f) salary bills for additional jobs created in the year of application made under the scheme.

e) Performance Grant disbursement criteria for components 2 and 3

1. Number of jobs created and maintained; including jobs created and maintained for women. For each job created and maintained for a woman an amount of Rs.15,000 per year will be paid, similarly, for each job created and maintained for a man an amount of Rs.10,000 per year will be paid, subject to the limit of 50% of total eligible grant.
2. Investments made in the value chain for increasing the value chain efficiency for component 2 and investment made for adoption and expansion of fish and fishery product safety and quality assurance systems under component 3, performance grant for investments made will be disbursed after completion of the investment subject to the limit of 50% of the eligible grant.

f) Component 4: Project management, monitoring and reporting:

Under this component, it is proposed to set up Project Management Units (PMUs) to manage, implement, monitor and evaluate project activities.

Background:

1. Over the period from 2013-14 to 2023-24, significant improvements have been made in fisheries sector in terms of fish production, which increased by 79.66 lakh tonnes; equivalent to increase in 43 years (1971 to 2014), robust growth of Coastal Aquaculture from 2013-14 to 2022-23, shrimp production increased from 3.22 lakh tonnes to —11.84 lakh tonnes (270%), shrimp exports more than doubled from Rs.19,368 crore to Rs.43,135 crore (123%), Employment and Livelihood opportunities to about 63 lakh fishers and fish farmers. The coverage per fisherman under the Group Accident Insurance Scheme (GAIS) has been increased from Rs. 1.00 Lakh to Rs. 5.00 Lakh, benefiting a cumulative total of 267.76 lakh fishers. There has been a notable rise in Livelihood and Nutritional Support for traditional fisher families, increasing from 3,40,397 to 5,97,709. Priority Sector Lending has seen a dedicated allocation of Rs.34,332 crore, compared to no separate allocation in 2013-14. The extension of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) to fisheries in 2019 has resulted in the issuance of 1.8 lakh cards.
2. Despite significant achievements, there are a number of sectoral challenges felt in the sector. The sector is informal in nature, lack of crop risk mitigation, lack of work based identities, poor access to institutional credit, sub-optimal safety & quality of fish sold by micro & small enterprises.  The new-sub-scheme under the existing Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) aims to address these issues, with total outlay of Rs.6,000 crore.

—–